February 25, 1999
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minnesota continued its Jekyll-and-Hyde season Thursday night, rebounding from Tuesday's poor performance at No. 23 Purdue for a crucial 62-48 victory over the Boilermakers.
Big Ten scoring leader Quincy Lewis had 27 points to lead the Golden Gophers, who badly needed the victory to keep their NCAA tournament hopes alive after dropping four of their previous five games.
That included Tuesday's 54-42 loss at Purdue in a makeup of a game postponed by bad weather last month. The Gophers (16-9, 7-8 Big Ten) committed a season-high 25 turnovers in that loss, and also set season lows for points and field goals.
Lewis also had a season-low 13 points in that game, but he matched that by halftime Thursday. After shooting 5-for-12 at Purdue, Lewis was 10-for-19 and added 10 rebounds in the last home Big Ten game of his career.
Kevin Clark, another of Minnesota's four seniors, scored 16 points.
The Gophers finished 6-2 at home in the conference, but they are just 1-6 on the road with Saturday's regular-season finale at Northwestern coming up.
Purdue (19-10, 7-8) trailed only 31-29 at the half, but shot 5-for-20 in the second half. The Boilermakers also committed 10 of their 18 turnovers in the second half while the Gophers turned the ball over just four times after the break and 10 times for the night.
Jaraan Cornell led the Boilermakers with 16 points and Brian Cardinal added 10. Purdue finishes the regular season at home Sunday against conference champion Michigan State.
It was just the third win for Minnesota in the last 13 games against Purdue. Gophers coach Clem Haskins improved to 7-20 against Purdue's Gene Keady, his former mentor at Western Kentucky.
The game was tied 39-39 when Cardinal scored on a tip-in with 12:28 left, but the Boilermakers missed five of their next 12 shots as Minnesota used an 16-5 run to open a 55-44 lead with 4:41 left.
Two freshmen, Joel Przybilla and walk-on Dusty Rychart, sparked the Gophers' run.
Przybilla started the run with a jumper, and he later scored on an alley-oop pass from Rychart and fed Lewis for a 3-pointer. Rychart capped the run with a steal and a baseline jumper to make it 50-42.
Greg McQuay scored for Purdue to make it 50-44, but Lewis answered with a 3-pointer and a jumper. The 3-pointer came after Rychart knocked a rebound out to Lewis, and the jumper came off a pass from Przybilla to give the Gophers their biggest lead of the night to that point.
After shooting 19-for-39 at the foul line in their last two games, the Boilermakers were 7-for-14 on Thursday and missed five straight in the middle of Minnesota's decisive second-half surge.
By RON LESKO
AP Sports Writer